


For Necessity; For Love

by kavkakat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, some mild swearing like with all my stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kavkakat/pseuds/kavkakat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel taught Sam enochian out of necessity; Sam teaches it to him out of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Necessity; For Love

**Author's Note:**

> A SassySanta2013 story for sastiel-is-my-otp on tumblr, who prompted: Sam learns enochian. I kind of took it and ran with it.  
> Set in a nebulous mid-season 9 AU where everyone is happy.  
> Posted first to my [tumblr](http://kavkakat.tumblr.com/post/72458252809/for-necessity-for-love).

With Cas, Kevin, and the Winchesters in the Men of Letters bunker - and Crowley in the basement, and Charlie and Dorothy visiting often enough that they need their own bed, and everyone else who stops in - Sam feels like he has a family (or at the least is running an inn for hunters). It’s both comforting and… Well, every other time he’s had family alive other than Dean, they’ve been killed off in various grisly ways. And he’s not too keen on any of them dying of anything other than old age at the moment.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas, especially. Who’s no longer an angel, Sam has to remember, although it’s easier and easier to remember, because he acts differently than when he was an angel. Not big things, but little things. Human things.

Turns out that Cas remembers to eat far more often than Sam does, and is shaping up to be a half decent cook. (Dean still has him beat by miles and miles, but Dean also has twenty five years more practice.)

Turns out that Cas’s sense of fashion is about as bad as Sam’s own, and doesn’t really care about sizes, so it’s a while before Sam realizes that he’s wearing Sam’s shirts not because they’re fucking or because Cas doesn’t have any other shirts. (Although, Sam does suppose that, since they’re fucking, his closet is much closer than, say, Dean’s in the morning.)

Turns out that Cas’s memory is still awesome, except for bits and pieces. Including: a few details of the holocene epoch (which he had been alive for); most of the pleistocene epoch (because if Sam needed any reminder that Cas was old as balls, it was the fact that he had been created 2.5 million years ago); and all of his enochian, because it turns out that he never learned enochian - angels are just created knowing it.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean’s in the kitchen. Cas is with him, studying how he makes hamburgers. Sam is taking a nap in the living room, face propped up on the current book of research.

Dean says: “Hey, Cas, why don’t you help Sam with the angel research?”

Cas shrugs. “I’ve looked through all the books I have been able to.”

Dean eyes the stacks of books - no, not books, more like tomes, yeah, tomes is a good word, they’re so big and dusty - surrounding his brother. “Uh huh.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Those are in enochian.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, and?”

Cas rolls his eyes again (he’s quite fond of the motion). “I can’t read enochian.”

Dean snorts. “Since when?”

Cas: “Since Metatron stole my grace from me.”

Dean: “Well fuck.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sam, once he was informed, agreed with Dean and decided it was his responsibility to reteach his lover.

 

* * *

 

 

It reminded Sam a bit of the apocalypse, when Cas first taught him enochian. (And wasn’t that just beautiful, teaching each other a language that barely anyone spoke, at different times of their lives together.) Cas had been rough and curt with him, correcting his grammar and pronunciation forcefully. Sam understood: this was the difference between life and death. By the end of Cas’s lessons, Sam could get by in enochian, and had a bit of an accent.

 

* * *

 

 

(He no longer had that accent, not after -)

 

* * *

 

 

Basic grammar first. Verbs in their places, and adverbs and adjectives and commands. Cas was best with adjectives, was good with verbs, but for some reason forgot how to conjugate commands every time Sam asked.

It was different than English, but just similar enough to be confusing. The most interesting: there are two pronouns in enochian. One is for God, and the other is for everyone else. There is no I or You or We or They. Angels have no need of identity when they follow their Orders.

Sam hated enochian pronouns. Cas wasn’t too fond of them either.

 

* * *

 

 

(But in secret, late at night, Sam whispered them along Cas’s ribs, and Cas shakes with love, because when, if not then, were they one?)

 

* * *

 

 

When Cas taught, it was aimed at vocabulary. This is a cat, this is a dog, this is a blade capable of smiting any human who looks at it. It was important. Words have power, even in English, and in enochian if you can name something you can influence it. Sam needed to be able to walk into a room and name everything in it in enochian.

It was a grueling class, and Sam felt like he never would learn everything he needed to. He kept flash cards, which Cas thought were funny, and would test himself in the car to keep himself awake. He’d test Dean as well, but Dean didn’t seem to care as much about it. And that was alright, because Sam was the one they needed to worry about, the weak link.

 

* * *

 

 

(Even later, when Dean was off on his own and Sam and Cas were saving him, Sam still knew that he was the weak link.)

 

* * *

 

 

Now, they can go slowly. Metatron is a threat, but he’s also not doing much. The fallen angels are a threat, but not all of them. Some of them remember Cas from the war and want to help him. Some of them remember Cas from the war and want to kill him. Seraphiel was a surprise. Once the angel of silence, now human and deaf. Cas put his lessons in enochian on hold until he could converse haltingly in ASL with her, and then picked them back up.

Seraphiel was interested in relearning enochian as well, although she expanded her fluency through reading and writing more through speaking and listening, for obvious reasons. She was also instrumental in protecting the bunker, because while she was deaf, she certainly wasn’t limited for any definition of the word. She also knew the fallen angels better than anyone, including Cas.

 

* * *

 

 

(She was one of Sam’s many family members who intended on staying for a couple days and ended up staying forever.)

 

* * *

 

 

Different landmarks called for different rewards. Dean had suggested blowjobs for good behavior, but neither Sam nor Cas were interested in that. Sam gave him chocolate for new vocabulary, fuzzy blankets for books he read successfully, more books for each conversation he holds without looking something up.

The day that Cas was able to live completely in enochian - no English at all, the entire day, Sam decided his work was done and took Cas on a weekend trip to San Francisco. (Sam would have preferred somewhere abroad, but he doesn’t remember the last time he owned a passport, if he ever did, and Cas doesn’t even have a birth certificate.) It was nice, it was fun, and Cas appreciated it.

(The night that Cas whispered “I love you” in enochian into Sam’s mouth, Sam also rewarded him.)


End file.
